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Huge 500 Million Gallon Coal Ash Floods Clinch River in TN
In another blow to the myth of "clean coal", a huge flood of coal ash waste flooded residents and polluted miles of Tennessee rivers on Sunday evening around 11 PM. The coal ash what is left over from the burning of coal in a power plant. This ash is stored in ponds at a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power plant in Harriman, TN.
As clean air standards have required coal power plants to capture more of the pollutants that are normally emitted from a coal power plant by the use of smoke-stack scrubbers, the waste product from this process, the ash, has become more and more toxic. Some of the pollutants contained in coal ash are mercury, arsenic and sulfur.
TVA's Kilgore said that chemicals in the ash are of concern, but that the situation is probably safe. The power plant is still operating, sending the ash to a larger pond on the site.
It appears that when the earthen damn that holds the lake of coal ash broke it sent millions of gallons of coal ash sludge into the Emory River that then flows into the Clinch River and eventually becomes the drinking source for Chattanooga. Aerial video and pictures show houses covered in the coal ash waste and enormous fish kills. These images look very similar to the Martin County coal sludge flood in 2000 that released 300 million gallons of coal sludge and flooded several communities in Martin County and shut down water systems for 75 miles down the Big Sandy and Ohio rivers.
In similar news, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that 39 groups protesting coal ash rule change. These citizen environmental organizations are urging President Elect Obama to reject a proposed new rule making it easier for coal companies to dispose of Coal Combustions Waste, the fly ash from power plants, in abandon mines.
Disposal of coal ash in mines is a growing practice that threatens the health and environment of coalfield communities," said Lisa Graves Marcucci, president of Jefferson Action Group in Jefferson Hills, who noted that 120 abandoned mines are already used for ash disposal in Pennsylvania.
Here are some of the news stories and video links about the coal ash flood: Isn't it interesting that the spill happened Sunday night and on Tuesday there is still very little national news coverage beyond the blogs.
- Here is a YouTube video from the Knoxville News Sentinel
- From Now Public, Dike Breaks - Ash Slide Damages Homes in Tennessee
- From the blog Ruminations from the Distant Hills
- From the Knoxville News: Ash leak fuels debate on risks of coal waste
- From the Roanoke Times: Coal ash tsunami in Tennessee
- Here is a blog post about the flood from Appalachian Voices: Fly Ash Floods Tennessee River
- Here is another blog article from Green KY: Massive Slurry Spill in Tennessee on Monday
- This blog article was recently posted on website for The Alliance for Appalachia: TVA’s Coal Ash Sludge Pond Bursts
- On Wednesday morning, December 24th, this story ran in the New York Times: Water Supplies Tested After Tennessee Spill. by Shaila Dewan. Good for the New York Times, they followed up the short article yesterday with a longer and more in depth news story today, December 25. This story not only documents the tragedy of the situation, but it also asks some good questions about the safety of the entire coal cycle. Coal Ash Spill Revives Issue of Its Hazards. Included in this news story is a great graphic that helps to tell the entire story of how the coal fly ash is produced and stored as well as good maps that show where the flood occured.
The Tennessee Valley Authority has issued no warnings about the potential chemical dangers of the spill, saying there was as yet no evidence of toxic substances. “Most of that material is inert,” said Gilbert Francis Jr., a spokesman for the authority. “It does have some heavy metals within it, but it’s not toxic or anything.”
Holly Schean, a waitress whose home, which she shared with her parents, was swept off its foundation when millions of cubic yards of ash breached a retaining wall early Monday morning, said, “They’re giving their apologies, which don’t mean very much.”
The T.V.A., Ms. Schean said, has not yet declared the house uninhabitable. But, she said: “I don’t need your apologies. I need information.
- The news program Democracy Now hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez did some great reporting on the flood Wednesday morning, December 24th. They interviewed Ann League with SOCM and Rick Hind with Greenpeace. You can read the transcript on their website or watch the program with Real Player. Spill at Tennessee Coal Plant Creates Environmental Disaster. Below are a couple of quotes from the program by Ann League:
It is a beautiful community. The area around Harriman is known for its fishing. The river there is one of the cleanest in the area. People go down there to recreate, to fish. It’s just a huge, huge problem that this has happened. I mean, this is affecting more than the people who just live around there; this affects everyone in the area. And it just shows that the cycle of coal can never be clean.
It’s a myth. Clean coal is just a huge myth. It cannot be clean. It starts dirty from the extraction. As we see by what just happened in Harriman, it’s dirty after you burn it, also. They keep talking about clean coal and how they can clean it up after they burn it. Very few people talk about the extraction end of coal. If you could see the beautiful mountains of Appalachia being flattened and blown up day after day, you’d know that coal cannot be clean. There’s people who are losing their homes, whose drinking water has been polluted by the acid mine drainage coming off these huge mountaintop removal sites. There’s no such thing as clean coal. It can never be clean, as long as they’re blowing up our mountains and polluting our waterways with this coal sludge.
If you put scrubbers on these plants that go to clean coal technology, they’ll start burning dirtier and dirtier coal, and therefore, the sludge that they’re holding in these ponds is going to get more and more toxic, so the next accident we have like this where a pond gives way, what comes out of that is going to be even worse than what came out of the Harriman sludge pond.
- National Public Radio has begun reporting on this story today, Friday December 26th. You can read the transcript or listen to the report from Morning Edition: Water Safe, Cleanup Underway In Tenn. Dike Burst you can also listen to NPR try to answer the question Is Ash-filled Sludge a Health Threat? Then on NPR's evening news program All Things Considered: Coal Ash May Pose Health Hazard. (You should be able to listen to this news story after 7 PM est. today.)
We will continue update this post with news and action steps as this story continues to unfold.
mistaken name
Hrm?
Clean Coal Ain't Going Away
Grow up????
this shouldnt have happened but ?????
have a safe and happy new year
Re: this shouldn't have happened, but ?????
I understand making the analogy to other products that have a toxic or dangerous waste product and I don't want it to seem as though we are "picking on coal again." I hope we are all honoring the work of coal miners by insisting the jobs be as safe as possible from both immediate dangers such as backing a bull-dozer or rock truck over a high-wall as well as the long term dangers of black-lung and rock-lung (silicosis).
However, what I think we are trying to do here is point out the hypocrisy of the both our federal government and the coal industry. The coal industry spends millions of dollars each year promoting the idea of "clean coal." Which is try to sell the public on the idea that we can continue to use electricity from coal and it will have no detrimental effects on the health of people or the planet. What they don't tell you is that the heavy metals and toxins in coal have to go somewhere. Either they are going into the air, into the ash or into the water. And then rather than taking responsibility for producing these heavy metals and toxins and trying to dispose of them in safer ways they throw money and fear at politicians. "We can't store this ash in safer lined pits, that would cost too much money and we would go out of business, the coal industry says like a broken record." Then they contribute a little more to local representatives and senators to make sure they carry that same message. Then the regulator agencies are pressured to relax regulations and we end up with homes being buried and ash and sludge in our drinking water.
If the coal industry spent as much money trying to follow laws instead of always trying to weaken laws and figure out ways to get around regulations then people wouldn't be having as many problems and there would be far less of an outcry to move away from coal. But the coal industry time and time again proves that it can't be trusted. The workers are honorable, the executives and lawyers are not. Don't believe me, ask any miner trying to collect what they are owed once they develop black-lung.
Another point
actually...
I guess if you are speaking in geologic terms, there's little waste, as in millions of years the earth will have done *something* with the toxic waste. But as for now, coal creates toxic waste, there's no way around it.
Media Blackout? Puh-Leese!
They don't care about the people being affected by the disaster, they're too busy slamming the TVA and coal and clean coal to offer the victims any sympathy. Of course, they probably figure they are a bunch of ignorant East Tennessee hicks who probably voted for McCain, so they probably don't give a damn.
I know where these environmental nazis are coming from and what kind of people they are. If the same people in the same part of Tennessee were cutting down some trees for lumber or clearing land for a farm or whatever, many of these same damn environmentalists would be driving metal spikes through the trees to sabotage them, regardless of whether they seriously injured or even killed somebody in the process.
Their damn self-serving crocodile tears and "concern" for the environment doesn't impress me in the least.
If you're American...
safe energy and politics
To media black out
Once you have watched your Children suffering and your Family, Friends and Neighbors dieing from drinking poison water from their well I think you are more aware of what is happening around you.
My Family lives in this area and worked hard to get the city to bring water to their community and now they can not drink it. No industry should be able to destroy the water it belongs to us all.
Look at Eastern Kentucky 40-50 inches of rainfall annually and you can't get a clean drink of water. That is the beginning of coal from the extraction end, then burn it what goes in the air makes it unsafe to eat fish in Kentucky streams then comes what to do with the coal combustion waste yea it pollutes the water also. So why should we not be thinking about moving away from an energy source that is killing our planet from the cradle to the grave.
To Teri
have a nice day
correction